It is really easy to lose sight of what God is looking for if we practice religious traditions without considering the deeper meaning. We can quickly get wrapped-up in the wrong thing; locked in the fear that we might have failed to cross our t’s and dot our I’s religiously speaking. This is a huge headache for God because He is purpose driven. Like any parent, God wants us to grow and learn, more than He desires ritual for ritual’s sake.
But hundreds and even thousands of years of religious tradition inevitably try to squeeze us into a “religious box”. The celebration of Lent is a time to confront the notion of how we deal with living faith. Lent is a special time in preparation for the celebration of Easter. It’s an often forgotten tradition that asks people to sacrifice something. Anyone who went to Catholic school remembers Lent!
Living Faith
I was nine or ten the year I made my first big, intentional sacrifice. I had fallen in love with a Koala bear glove puppet that looked out at me from behind the glass window of the local toy store, imploring with huge sad eyes for someone to love him. Who could resist? And so each day, on my way to school I would look with longing at the 
bear and silently promise, “I will take you home.” For ten long weeks I saved my pocket money. Finally, one Saturday I purchased the toy of my dreams.
When Monday dawned little did I realize the seismic conflict that was awaiting me. Sister Mary John peered over her spectacles and announced that we were all very lucky children. We had so much while other children had nothing. She ended her speech with the punch line I had been dreading “why don’t you bring your favorite toy into school tomorrow to give to the poor children?” This was a noble thought but I had owned Koala bear for less than 48 hours. Could God really need this sacrifice? I had a knot in my stomach that didn’t go away until I had tearfully kissed Koala bear goodbye and wrapped him up for some poor child, who I hoped would appreciate him as much as I did. It was a gamble. I don’t know whether God needed that sacrifice but one thing I am sure of, He never forgot it!
What do a Koala bear and frozen yogurt have in common?
Fast forward to 2014: I’m in a meeting where we are offered a delicious dessert at 10 a.m. My kind of meeting! It was a gourmet frozen yogurt. As the dishes were passed out, the man sitting next to me, thinking it was ice-cream politely declined. He had given up ice-cream for Lent. The server quickly responded, “No worries, its frozen yogurt.” So, where do you draw the line on the technicalities of sacrifices? We have all been there, or at least I have!
Slippery in sacrifice!
In being slippery in sacrifice we start to lose the value of the offering. It opens up all kinds of questions like “what was the point of the sacrifice in the first place?” I think that God is definitely bigger than “sacrifice for sacrifice’s sake.” Nevertheless, religions of all persuasions are characterized by sacrifice. Therefore it would be good to understand what God intends in any offering.
Holding on and letting go
True religions have recommended sacrifice because we have a tendency to fiercely hold onto the wrong things. We hang on to possessions sometimes regardless of the cost. There is nothing uglier than a family fight over the possessions of a deceased loved one but it happens all the time.
We fiercely hold onto our identities and create barriers and boundaries in an attempt to safeguard our worth but the irony is that we are all descended from one man and woman who were meant to be the original parents of mankind. The Bible names them Adam and Eve.
“Here we are, products of the things that have happened to our ancestry. Here we are assembled-white people, yellow people, and black – but when we look back into the past, to the beginning of human history, we all started from one ancestry. Dividing into many streams, we have discriminated amongst ourselves. If we continue to be divided like this, when will the time come for us to be united again?” – Sun Myung Moon
To gain the unity we seek we have to give up something…a concept we have, a boundary line we created that says I belong and you don’t. Ironically, it can feel safer to hang onto resentments and prejudices than to let them go. Nevertheless, letting go could in fact change the world: how would it change my life if I fully embraced the concept that everyone is equal? Not just paying lip service to the idea but actually living the value of “equality” all the way to its natural conclusion. If we did decide to do this everyone would treat everyone else very differently. But in order to do that we would have to be willing to give something up. This is the kind of sacrifice that God is really interested in.
If you want to test yourself on this one just work on a team! In a team environment everyone is needed but we are all coming from very different places. Some of us are visionaries, big picture people. Others are detailed orientated and live in the realm of minutia where visionaries don’t dare to tread. Some can start acting right away with scant information and others hold back until every step is worked out, at least in theory. The tension and push and pull on a team is where, in compromising, we discover a bigger and more loving heart.
The push and pull of relationships
Gaining an appreciation of the diverse perspectives of others, whether it’s on a team or in a family, or church family, opens the way to communicate your own needs and intentions transparently and sensitively while enlarging who you are by what others bring to the relationship.
If you access your relationships to help you to let go of the things that hold you back, God will work in your relationships to carry out His process of restoration in your life. Rev Moon often talked about how the family is the ‘school of love’ for this very reason. In learning to love every kind of personality you become a more universal person. God has the ability to appreciate each one of us and life allows us to develop a God-like heart.
Being open to what God is doing in your life
God doesn’t want empty sacrifice. In one sense sacrifice is Plan B. Plan A is simply being open to God and allowing God to show you what is needed. Easier said than done!
Leading up to Easter we naturally think of the story of Jesus’ remarkable life. If you study the story of Jesus’ life from this perspective you can see that he was begging the people of Israel to simply stick with Plan A.
John 10:22-42
22 Then came the Festival of Dedication[a] at Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. 24 The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all[b]; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”
33 “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’[c]? 35 If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— 36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? 37 Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. 38 But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” 39 Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.
40 Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. There he stayed, 41 and many people came to him. They said, “Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true.” 42 And in that place many believed in Jesus.
Plan A – Believe
Plan A or the sacrifice that God was seeking was for the people to believe in Jesus. In other words, instead of being driven by their own concepts and expectations of who the Messiah was going to be, they should have been open to what God was showing them. Jesus stood before them but they couldn’t see him.
Laying your life before God
We all have blind spots in our lives. Often it is others who can see them more clearly than we can. God is not looking for burnt offerings and incense but simply a humble and open heart. He wants us to set aside all the things in our lives that pose a barrier between ourselves and Him.
The trouble is that we are used to being the way we are and feel comfortable in our own clothes so to speak. A good friend, Rev Edgerly, shared a fun example with me. He said it goes something like this:
The Messiah comes into a big room filled with people, takes a look around and then yells out an observation with complete confidence.
“OK everybody, your attention please. I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that the colorful shirts you are all wearing are truly beautiful. But, the bad news is, you have all put your shirts on inside out. The shirt is not designed to be worn that way. The shirt is much more beautiful if you wear it the way it was originally designed, with the colors on the outside, rather than on the inside. Now, everybody please take off your shirt, and put it back on the right way. OK?”
The words of the messiah are the obvious truth once you are open to them, but they are opposite of what people are thinking, and opposite to the way people have been living. This presents a few problems.
1. Just about everybody in the room thinks they look just fine the way they are, so they say: “Hey, to heck with you.”
2. Some simply don’t believe him.
3. Others don’t want to make the effort and suffer the embarrassment of admitting they have been dressing incorrectly and aren’t motivated to change the way they have always worn their shirt.
4. They think life is comfortable this way saying, “It may be wrong but I’ve grown used to it and dressing any other way would feel strange at first. I don’t really want to go through that.”
A few do listen to the Messiah and turn their shirts around, but then they look different from everybody else! That’s awkward!
Changing the way you love
Of course, what we are talking about here is not just a shirt but something infinitely more important: love. The Messiah comes into the world to tell people to completely change the way they love. This is why Rev. Moon has been teaching and emphasizing the way of true love:
Rather than living a self-centered life – living for the sake of others
Rather than engaging in sexuality without commitment– practicing true sexual morality
Rather than criticizing and attacking those who oppose you – loving your enemy
Just like the shirt analogy, these principles are in fact obviously true to most people, but this is not the way people are living and loving, and no-one likes being told to change their life!
And yet we would be happier if we did. The sacrifice that God is really looking for is a willing heart – a heart that is open to Him. Faith should be fun and exciting! Through faith you can discover your own capacity to let God in and mess with your life – allowing Him to tell you, “ I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but you have your shirt on backwards and inside out!” We could all use a little spiritual makeover and our Heavenly Parent wants to give us one, if we are willing to receive it.
You can listen a recording of this sermon on our Podcast page.
